As I mentioned in the Intro, I am not a famous doctor who has traveled to China or India researching ancient secrets for years. As much as I respect and admire those people, I am confident in myself that sharing our real-life ordinary human experience is my role on this Earth. My husband Ryan and I are average people from middle-class families in Illinois.
Often, people can be intimated by someone who has high credentials and has been a student of a modality (or several modalities) for many years. It creates the impression that, “Wow, I can’t do that as I am not like him/her or never will be.” That mindset isn’t real; of course you can do it, too. When you realize that we are all one and that none of us is better than the other, you can achieve anything. You can move past your limiting beliefs. However, in reality, they still exist.
This book is full of a lot of information, tips, tools, and relatable stories, so you will find more than the average one nugget that the majority of people derive from a book; especially if you read between the lines.
Let the journey begin….
Ryan and I lost our high paying corporate jobs at the same time in 2009. Yep, the same time. Six months apart.
It was Christmas Eve, 2008. My boss was silently packing up her desk with the door closed. I saw the light under the door. She was supposed to be on vacation, so I was scratching my head, “What was going on?” I was a Senior Buyer with Shop NBC (now called Shop HQ) and we had already been through two rounds of layoffs in 2008. I knocked on her door. She ushered me into her office and told me to keep quiet. She was packing up her desk, and she advised me to do the same.
We were supposed to travel to NYC for the buying markets after the New Year. A few days prior, a memo had been sent cancelling our trip. I started packing my desk. She was right; 70 of us were let go shortly after the new year.
It was a mix of emotions. If you have ever been laid off or fired, you know. It’s part relief, part shock “Me? I’m awesome!”, part scared out of your ever-loving mind, and of course such an event is a blow to your confidence.
Ryan and I had been manifesting moving to “somewhere it never snowed.” He was suffering from depression, partly because of his unhappiness with his job as a plant supervisor, partly because we both weren’t fans of living in snowy, cold Minneapolis, Minnesota (putting it nicely), and partly because we had a lot to work on individually and as a couple.
To move through the tough days, we would lay on top of the bed listening to ocean sounds on the sound machine. I would describe what it would be like when we moved somewhere where it never snowed. I had no idea what manifestation was, I just figured out that transporting him to a place of happiness helped with the pain of his daily situation.
Imagine the green grass all year round….. We have two Shih Tzus and can easily take them outside on walks….You can go fishing any time you want and catch big fish like mahi mahi and wahoo….. You fish for a living and have your captain’s license…..We own our own boat….We see palm trees and sunshine every day.
Personally, I was also hell-bent on moving. I had envisioned living somewhere warm since I was a kid. Bing Crosby’s Christmas song Mele Kalikimaka was burned into my brain. “That’s the island greeting that we send to you. From a land where palm trees swayed.” I needed to make sure we were financially prepared, so in 2007, I started saying, “if we cannot wear this in Florida, we cannot buy it.” I didn’t realize the impact of what I was speaking into existence. It became a game to me. I wasn’t allowing us to buy any more winter coats, sweaters, boots, etc. If we could not wear it in Florida, we could not buy it. By the time we moved in 2009, both of our winter coats had holes in the armpits. No joke.
Being the take-action Type A planner that I am, I had assumed I would have a nice paying job as a buyer somewhere in the South (preferably Florida), and that company would move us. Once we were settled, Ryan would find a job doing something related to fishing, and then I would eventually move to a sales job, as I desired to be “pay for performance.” This was the plan I was marching towards. What’s the saying about best laid plans? The universe laughed. As I soon found out, it had another plan.
I was getting concerned and nervous that time was running out, and that my plan wasn’t happening as I had desired. Why wasn’t my plan happening? What else should I be doing? Who should I be calling? Was I trying hard enough? Looking for a new job was a full-time job in itself, and it was starting to eat at my thoughts as well as affect my positive mindset.
That May, I was home by myself, and in the midst of my feverish job search I decided to watch Oprah. She had a couple on her show talking about how they both lost their jobs at the same time. I sat there quietly, riveted, staring at the TV while the thoughts started to swirl. I knew intuitively that that will be us. I need to brace myself now. And my intuition was spot on. At 7 a.m. on June 6th, I received the call; Ryan was laid off, as well.
The day Ryan was laid off, we were fortunate to receive an invitation to go boating on Lake Minnetonka. We needed a break in energy, and it was obviously a rough morning. The invite came from a friend of a friend, as we didn’t know the boat owner. It was indeed a lucky universe-driven event. We enjoyed a beautiful day on the water and had faith that the universe was figuring out our next steps, because when we started to think about our next steps, it was daunting.
So, the fact that I wouldn’t buy us any new clothes starting in 2008 for the wintertime because, “We won’t be able to wear that when we move to Florida,” was pretty far out there to us. It was an out loud act of will and declaration towards our dreams, which I manifested. Our coats had several quarter sized holes in the armpits when I tossed them in the dumpster after the winter of 2009. With all of my determination, I declared, We were not going to be in Minneapolis another winter.
August 31, 2009, we left the parking garage of 110 W Grant Street and headed towards Florida with the final intention to land in The Keys. We didn’t know a soul; we had no jobs, hardly any money, and we never even been to The Keys.
We stated our journey to get on our feet as soon as we landed in The Florida Keys on October 1. I kept saying, “Someday when we get our shit together we will help others.” Getting our shit together took many years, but we stayed positively persistent, had faith in the universe, and did the work.
Our vision, Good Karma Sportfishing, was launched January 1, 2012, and has only grown more successful with the passing years. The associated stories weaved throughout this book are used as examples to help you build confidence in your relationship.
Helping you build that confidence and intimacy makes all of our challenges worthwhile.
